This invention pertains to tent campers, and, in particular, to a tent camper with a slide-out room which increases the living space of the camper.
Tent campers or tent camper trailers are portable housing structures frequently employed during camping outings to furnish campers at a campsite with some of the comforts of home. Tent campers are typically towed behind a vehicle to a campsite while arranged in a collapsed, compact alignment having a low profile. Upon reaching the campsite, the tent camper is arranged in an expanded, high profile use position by raising the roof or top of the camper.
A shortcoming of existing tent campers is the crowded and cramped living quarters they are able to provide. To increase the effective living space, typical tent camping trailers include bed wings or rooms which can be extended in a longitudinal or fore and aft direction from the tent camper body when the top is raised during the conversion of the tent camper from its compact alignment to its expanded, use alignment. These bed wings provide sleeping accommodations for campers.
While presently extendable to some extent in the longitudinal direction, existing tent campers still are limited as to the living space which can be provided. In particular, the width of the provided living space has in the past been dictated by the lane size of roads over which the campers are transported. Large travel trailers or dedicated recreational vehicles, which have fixed, full side walls and end walls which extend between a fixed roof and floor, have on occasion included laterally extendable rooms. However, the standard construction of such rooms discredited the feasibility of their application in tent campers. In particular, a room of this type in travel trailers was normally self-supporting, due in part to the extendable room frame telescopically connecting to the heavy duty framework of the vehicle and also due to a lipped connection between the sturdy walls of the extendable room and the portions of the vehicle side walls proximate the roof. Thus, while hindered by the relatively limited structural integrity of tent campers, it is desirable to provide a laterally extending room for tent campers to enlarge the available camper living space.